Haunted
by thegoatlady
Summary: One-shot. Damon's POV of S1: E7 "Haunted". "It's what I want." She confirmed, glancing back and directing the statement at Stefan, and Damon heard the words in between: I will not be sorry.


**A/N: Hi! I was rewatching TVD and had the sudden inspiration for this one-shot. I've just written this at 1AM, incredibly quickly and without editing, so I'd bet there are typos, but I couldn't resist posting it. Enjoy!**

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Damon couldn't exactly say he felt regretful. He could see where he'd made a mistake, of sorts, in snapping the girl's neck; turning a druggie teen with major Mommy Issues into a bloodthirsty vampire hadn't been the best plan of action. It just exposed the girl to the most overpowering addiction she could ever encounter. Put together, it obviously equaled control issues, obstinacy, etc.…hell, most teenagers couldn't handle going through puberty without getting themselves killed, let alone the sudden onslaught that was vampirism. A recipe for disaster.

So, no, it wasn't a surprise nor that much of a disappointment that the girl had already messed up and gotten herself staked. It certainly wasn't uncommon when it came to newbie vamps, and Damon was more relieved than anything else to find that she was dead.

He found none other than Elena Gilbert hovering beside the body, regaled to her knees, as if the night's encounters had stolen from her the strength to so much as stand on her own two feet. She held a hand to her abdomen, and Damon remembered the conversation he'd had with Stefan not five minutes ago, how his brother had said his little pet had been injured during the fight, and that he needed Damon to take care of the body and try to convince Elena to go home. Not that he cared very much for the well-being of anyone but himself, but he knew the fault for the whole debacle had—rightfully—landed on him. So he would oblige his brother, this once. Besides, he didn't need Carol Lockwood snooping around the death of her son's girlfriend, he reasoned, remembering his earlier conversation with the desperate woman.

"You should go," he remarked casually, rounding the side of one of the offensively colored busses. "I got this."

Elena, seeming to slowly emerge from her silent daze, rose from her knees. He felt a tinge of respect to see that she hadn't yet gone into shock. Her nurse's costume was more ripped and bloody than he assumed it was supposed to be, her brown eyes churning with deeply rooted disgust as she stared him down. Not that Damon cared one bit what this look-alike thought of him.

"You did this," Elena seethed, voice shaking. Her eyes shifted, and she looked, oddly, almost hurt by his actions. "This is your fault."

He alternated his gaze between Elena and the graying, veiny corpse at their feet. Where would he even bury it? Ugh, why did he have to go and get bored and create more work for himself? He'd have to store this away as a life lesson. He busied himself with committing the ridiculously ironic vampire costume to memory, trying to ignore the smell of Elena's fresh wounds. He hadn't fed since the day before. "You confuse me for someone with remorse."

Suddenly, with a great grunt of effort, Elena sprung forward, slender hands outstretched towards him, and pushed with the strength of a kitten against his chest. When Damon stood as still as a rock despite her advances, she attempted another tactic, rearing her hand back to slap across his cheek. With a curl of his lip, he restrained himself from breaking her fingers as he caught her wrist midair. He'd already been slapped by Elena Gilbert once, and he wasn't keen on repeating the experience. The human flower, surprisingly, could pack a bit of a punch when she was pissed enough.

"None of this matters to me. None of it." He hissed, for some reason needing her to know that. He gave her hand a warning squeeze before flinging it back at her. She was testing his patience, and it was a miracle that with everything else going on he hadn't murdered her, or hit her, or at least bitten her already. She seemed to be perpetually poking at his anger with her stupidly perfect, rounded fingernails.

In all honesty, Damon hadn't found himself wanting to truly harm Elena, not once. She'd acclimated herself into their world easier than anyone he'd ever seen, barely over the initial shock of it all before she was planning, and helping, and doing with an efficiency anyone would admire. He remembered a few months before, the sweet girl he'd met in the middle of the street just after the turn of midnight, how he'd been transfixed by her slow burn of a grin, and how he was still trying to convince himself it was because of her resemblance to his old lover that he'd never laid a finger on her. _Passion, adventure, danger._

The sharp, familiar slap of her hand against his cheek jolted him from his thoughts, and he vaguely registered the words Elena had just spoken. "People die around you! How could it not matter? It matters and you _know it._ "

Everything in him froze for a moment, and he realized idly that Elena stood before him, terrified out of her mind and poised for an attack. She knew exactly what she'd just done. Or maybe not exactly. Damon had rarely experienced a lapse in control quite like now.

He slowly, carefully, leveled his gaze to her, turning his head from where it had been snapped to the side. He felt his body instinctively lunge forward without his consent, the beast within him aching to sink fangs into this nuisance of a human that dared test him so openly. Elena let a small gasp escape her, eyes flickering with alarm, and yet…she still stood her ground. Remarkable.

Muscles worked in every part of his body, tense as tightened iron chains. Damon's senses sharpened with the effort, the smell of her blood flooding him in waves. Her heart was beating faster, now. Her hair was framed messily around her flushed, angry face, her eyes a blatant challenge that tempted him so. He wondered if the veins beneath his eyes were showing, or if his eyes had adopted the slight red tinge they always did just before he let the monster take over.

"You need to leave." He managed to say matter-of-factly. She needed to leave. He didn't want to kill her. Not her. "Your wounds are bleeding, and _you need to leave._ "

He said the last few words with as much obvious emphasis as he could afford to get her out of there. He felt a twitch in his brow, trying to convey the urgency he felt without confessing how feebly he was clinging to his control.

Thankfully, the fire in her eyes still withstanding, Elena grabbed onto the wound on her shoulder as if to shield it from his view, and walked away, smartly never taking her gaze from him and never turning her back. This one had better instincts than most. Damon had a feeling she would win this game, if there was ever one to compete in.

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He ended up carelessly dumping the druggie's body somewhere near the Falls. And instead of finding blood, as he should have…he found himself back at Elena's house, eavesdropping. He approached from the back of the house, having made his way through the woods. Stefan had mentioned something about Elena's kid brother on the phone earlier, and Damon assumed he would have to be the one to handle it. Kill, erase, or turn. Though, turning someone hadn't ended well in very recent events, so he thought he would hold out on that front for a while. Killing really would be the most efficient option, he knew, but something about the fierceness of Elena's earlier expression made him think twice. One of the windows in the back of the house sat propped open, curtains fluttering in the soft night breeze. Damon heard sniveling from inside, and almost thought it was Elena's obligatory breakdown. He expected to find Saint Stefan holding her close and shushing her, and almost rolled his eyes before he realized the one crying wasn't Elena. She wasn't the weak one. No, of course she wasn't.

"Make it stop, it hurts, Elena." Jeremy mumbled. Damon could tell from the muffled sound of it that the boy was crying into something, probably Elena's bloodied costume. Damon paused, staring up at the window, tempted to get to a vantage point where he could see into the room. But the strangest thought…maybe the siblings deserved their privacy. The kid sounded heartbroken, and if Damon was right, Elena was trying anything and everything to put him back together. They deserved a moment to themselves.

The crying went on for around fifteen minutes, and Damon had to lean against the side of the house for support when Elena started murmuring, "It's okay, Jer. I'm right here, little brother. I won't die on you."

When Elena finally made it out onto the porch of her house, Damon was on the verge of some kind of emotion. It had been so long that he wasn't sure, but he thought it was something akin to sympathy. As hard as he tried to push the thoughts down, Elena and Jeremy had stirred up in him memories of he and his own little brother. He remembered days where his only concern was making sure Stefan was safe and sound, when he was so sure that nothing would ever hurt him as long as Damon stood as the barricade. The two Gilberts had been through a lot and were still alive, and he found himself wondering how he and Stefan would have fared in their situation when they were young. Probably not quite as well. Hell, they could barely survive their relationship.

He made his decision before the words even left Elena's lips, because he knew it needed to be done, and he knew Stefan wouldn't have the strength to do it. He attempted to reinforce his mask of uncaring indifference and strode onto the porch. "I can do it."

He knew from the strange glance Stefan shot his way that the mask wasn't completely working.

"If this is what you want…" his emotions were still running through him in biting waves, and he felt his face trying to find an expression that suited what he was feeling. "I'll do it." Quasi-nonchalance.

Damon could tell from the constant, tortured way Stefan was staring at him that he wanted to be the one to do this for her. But he wasn't here for Stefan. He kept his gaze fixed on Elena, whose eyes were red-rimmed and tired looking. She had a blanket curled around her shoulders, but it didn't seem to be comforting her any.

"It's what I want." She confirmed, glancing back and directing the statement at Stefan, and Damon heard the words in between: _I will not be sorry._

Stefan nodded, turning his back on them in his tragic, tortured way as Elena faced Damon, her eyes full of even more hatred than he'd seen there before. He deserved it, he found himself thinking. She held her head high to the point of it possibly tipping right off the back of her shoulders, and told him what she wanted her little brother to know, protecting the family she had left without shame. When she was finished, Damon nodded, and with a rare air of solemnity, made his way up the stairs of Elena's home and into Jeremy's bedroom.

The boy sat on his bed, a pillow clutched to his chest. When he saw Damon standing in the doorway, he didn't even attempt to conceal his sobs. In fact, he barely acknowledged his presence. It was as if the kid was in such a deep state of sorrow that he couldn't—or didn't have the will to—function. And despite his every effort, Damon felt a firm tug somewhere deep in his chest, knowing so absolutely the pain in Jeremy's brown eyes, having felt such sadness himself in the past, and not having anybody that cared enough to pick up the pieces.

With a sigh, and barely anything other than a heavy glance he would not have normally let slip, Damon grasped Jeremy Gilbert by the shoulder, and told him lies.

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 **A/N: Don't forget to review! ;)**


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